Synthesis of CdS/CoP hollow nanocages with improved photocatalytic water splitting performance for hydrogen evolution

Photocatalysts with hollow structure have obvious advantages in photocatalytic hydrogen production. Herein, CoP was modified on the surface of CdS by sacrificial template method to prepare CdS/CoP composite photocatalyst with hollow structures. Compared with pure CdS, CdS/CoP nanocage has improved photocatalytic hydrogen production performance due to its hollow structure, excellent light absorption capacity, and electron-hole pair separation and transfer efficiency. The hydrogen production rate of CdS/CoP can reach to 15.74 mmol g−1 h−1, which is about 9 times than that of pure CdS. It is found that the formation of a p-n heterojunction between CdS and CoP is the key factor to improve the photocatalytic performance of the composites. This study provides a simple strategy for the construction of more hollow nanocomposite catalysts with excellent photocatalytic performance.